Germany's responsibility in WW1

pugsville said:

OK I did. Going back andd readng i but still isnt relevant, but anyway here pretty clear evdicne of Bortihs increased constrcution.

"After the German bill, the Admiralty abandoned its plan for reduced construction and, in December 1908, proposed building at least six more dreadnoughts. Opposition in the Cabinet revolved around the cost, led by Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George and President of the Board of Trade Winston Churchill, who both saw the military expenditures as threats to the welfare reforms promised by the Liberal Party. Lloyd George warned Prime Minister Asquith that Liberal MPs would revolt at a proposal adding an estimated £38 million in naval expenditures to the budget. However, the Conservative opposition, the Navy League, and British arms industry advocated for the spending. In popular sentiment, they were joined by King Edward VII, who supported eight more dreadnoughts.[2] A Conservative MP coined what would become a popular slogan: We want eight and we won't wait"

Anglo-German naval arms race - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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To which claim the counter argument was that 1908 budget was simply a revision to norm. Note the whole episode started with the Admiralty having had reduced its customary programs. This was one of Jackie Fisher's aims as First Sea Lord, to try and reduce the budgetary burden of the Navy. Then in light of developments the Admiralty proposed a budget that went part-way to restoring the normal rate of construction but the industry and opposition lobby launched a campaign for a restoration of the normal rate of construction.

The 1908 "We Want 8" only seems so dramatic if you ignore that the Liberal Government were, once again, trying to make extensive defence cuts.

It is worth noting that the arms race such as it was went on until 1912, or another pair of two year naval appropriations cycles and yet we hear nothing much about these. Why you should ask? Because they were boringly normal. The 1908 appropriation would have been abnormally low had it gone ahead as intended. As it was British naval construction merely continued the historical mean of the prior two decades.

RandomRodent said:

To which claim the counter argument was that 1908 budget was simply a revision to norm. Note the whole episode started with the Admiralty having had reduced its customary programs. This was one of Jackie Fisher's aims as First Sea Lord, to try and reduce the budgetary burden of the Navy. Then in light of developments the Admiralty proposed a budget that went part-way to restoring the normal rate of construction but the industry and opposition lobby launched a campaign for a restoration of the normal rate of construction.

The 1908 "We Want 8" only seems so dramatic if you ignore that the Liberal Government were, once again, trying to make extensive defence cuts.

It is worth noting that the arms race such as it was went on until 1912, or another pair of two year naval appropriations cycles and yet we hear nothing much about these. Why you should ask? Because they were boringly normal. The 1908 appropriation would have been abnormally low had it gone ahead as intended. As it was British naval construction merely continued the historical mean of the prior two decades.

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Whatever. Tomato, tomarto,


The German navy was built to chllange the Royal Navy.

pugsville said:

Whatever. Tomato, tomarto,


The German navy was built to chllange the Royal Navy.

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It seems at this point your understanding of naval strategy and politics is matched only by your grasp of the varieties of vegetables available.

That the German Navy was built to challenge the Royal Navy is the point. It is the exact nature of the challenge that factors into analysis of Germany's responsibility in regards World War1, though I will caveat as a factor and not the whole. Risk strategy was not a brilliantly new idea when Tirpitz started promoting it. Most navies did in fact follow some form of risk strategy and often if you did not have an expected adversary you asked the question "How can I make it risky for the British Royal Navy to operate in my home waters?" The Tirpitz innovation was to try and make risk theory an offensive strategy, "Can Germany build a large enough fleet that Britain backs down from a fight it can win?"

The Tirpitz variation is just as stupid as it sounds. However it captured the imagination of numerous German politicians and the Kaiser. Which then created a diplomatic problem as it resulted in a sense of threat in Britain. Worse it was a sense of threat that the British knew they could cope with. All the British had to do was avoid anything really stupid to ease Germany's burden on land and they would win at sea. So the risk strategy resulted in the Entente.

Worse having worsened Germany's strategic situation the building program committed to by law was in fact unsustainable for the German ship building industry and the finances of the Reich. This led to a feeling in Germany that not only had they turned Britain from a shady neutral into an active enemy but they had lost ground against France and worse Russia which were by far the most immediate threats and that the gap would continue to tilt against Germany.

Hence part of the urge to turn 1914 into a wider conflict was strategic as it was felt, rightly or wrongly, that Germany's window of victory was receding.

Again the strategic is but part of the wider picture and it is true your point about the stated purpose of the High Sea Fleet as a specifically offensive tool against the British rather than the more customary and cheaper defensive tool was a factor in both the Kaiserreich's internal politics and its worsening diplomatic situation. However the exact nature of the fubar was in part that it did not require a significant British response but merely focused British ire and made planning for war against Germany turn from a set of theoretical staff studies into a central plank of policy.

Frog33inUK said:

The number of sq. miles doesn't mean much in itself.
In 1871, the 5,067 sq. miles lost by France were an area which was (and over time would become even more) essential to the French industrial capacities, with resources in coal and iron ore etc, hence the building of the Maginot Line in the inter-war period which purpose was, amongst other things, to protect the crucial industrial infrastructures and mines along the German border.

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So Alsace and Lorraine were an important economic area, after development.
Was the area more developed in 1871, or 1919 when the French took it back?

And then the Allied Occupation of the Rhineland, where any production had to satisfy Reparations first, leaving the German industrial areas short of raw materials that went mostly to France, so German Factories unable to function, leading to lower economic output and lost jobs

Again, you can keep Germany down, or get paid back. Trying both wasn't working, Raw materials are low value compared to finished goods.

RandomRodent said:

It seems at this point your understanding of naval strategy and politics is matched only by your grasp of the varieties of vegetables available.

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Save the insults and peronal attacks address issues.

RandomRodent said:

That the German Navy was built to challenge the Royal Navy is the point.

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So you agree with me. Fine done.

RandomRodent said:

It is the exact nature of the challenge that factors into analysis of Germany's responsibility in regards World War1, though I will caveat as a factor and not the whole. Risk strategy was not a brilliantly new idea when Tirpitz started promoting it. Most navies did in fact follow some form of risk strategy and often if you did not have an expected adversary you asked the question "How can I make it risky for the British Royal Navy to operate in my home waters?" The Tirpitz innovation was to try and make risk theory an offensive strategy, "Can Germany build a large enough fleet that Britain backs down from a fight it can win?"

The Tirpitz variation is just as stupid as it sounds. However it captured the imagination of numerous German politicians and the Kaiser. Which then created a diplomatic problem as it resulted in a sense of threat in Britain. Worse it was a sense of threat that the British knew they could cope with. All the British had to do was avoid anything really stupid to ease Germany's burden on land and they would win at sea. So the risk strategy resulted in the Entente.

Worse having worsened Germany's strategic situation the building program committed to by law was in fact unsustainable for the German ship building industry and the finances of the Reich. This led to a feeling in Germany that not only had they turned Britain from a shady neutral into an active enemy but they had lost ground against France and worse Russia which were by far the most immediate threats and that the gap would continue to tilt against Germany.

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Yeah none of this is news.

RandomRodent said:

Hence part of the urge to turn 1914 into a wider conflict was strategic as it was felt, rightly or wrongly, that Germany's window of victory was receding.

Again the strategic is but part of the wider picture and it is true your point about the stated purpose of the High Sea Fleet as a specifically offensive tool against the British rather than the more customary and cheaper defensive tool was a factor in both the Kaiserreich's internal politics and its worsening diplomatic situation. However the exact nature of the fubar was in part that it did not require a significant British response but merely focused British ire and made planning for war against Germany turn from a set of theoretical staff studies into a central plank of policy.

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I never said the High Seas fleet was offensive tool. Do not straw man me. YOu are constructing a position I never took.


My piont when I entered this thread was to Object to the saying the German fleet was not primary built to chllange the Royal Navy.

You could have saved us all alot of tiem by just agreeing at that piont.

pugsville said:

Save the insults and peronal attacks address issues.

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I think he was playing to the "tomato tomarto" comment.

pugsville said:

Save the insults and peronal attacks address issues.


So you agree with me. Fine done.


Yeah none of this is news.


I never said the High Seas fleet was offensive tool. Do not straw man me. YOu are constructing a position I never took.


My piont when I entered this thread was to Object to the saying the German fleet was not primary built to chllange the Royal Navy.

You could have saved us all alot of tiem by just agreeing at that piont.

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Let me be very clear I do not agree with you. In addition rather than strawmanning you my point, and it is an important point, that what made the nature of the German naval challenge unusual was that it was offensive. The term you should have employed was steelmanning, that is make it look as if you have the strongest possible argument you could have mustered.

Now it may be that you do not understand that planning for conflict with the British Empire was not unusual and was not routinely regarded as a hostile act. To give two examples off the top of my head but in the 1890s the US Army and I am going off the top of my head so I cannot recall which exact agency within the Army it may have been the then School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth but I will need to check that, conducted a staff exercise featuring an invasion of New York State by 2 Canadian Army Corps. In 1892 Alfred Thayer Mahan at the Naval War College conducted a similar paper exercise in which a dozen US battleships had to contest a blockade of New York City by the Royal Navy (to give an idea of how ambitious that was the USS Texas was only launched that year and would not commission until 1895 giving the US precisely zero 1st class battleships).

The US Navy was expanded rapidly (remember 0 first class battleships in service until 1895) and yet was never considered a serious war risk by the Royal Navy. Why the difference with Germany? In part because it was designed to contest the Royal Navy in home waters or in response to hostile acts initiated by the British such as the Tennessee class armoured cruisers built to outmatch existing Royal Navy armoured cruisers individually. This kind of force design and practice was considered normal.

The Tirpitz plan on the other hand was unusual. It was intended to force diplomatic concessions upon the British by threat of attack so powerful that in defeating it the British would be unable to protect the Empire from the French and Russians. Ergo it was not defensive but offensive in nature.

Now feel free to quantify the impact of this feature of the Tirpitz plan differently to myself but be aware there is a reason that it was considered unusual and that is the reason why the British body politic reacted so strongly when it was more complacent about other naval building programs, though there is an informed and reasoned argument that had Germany been willing to wait for war the fear of Russian naval rearmament might have resulted in the very Anglo-German alliance the Kaiser sometimes courted.

delta1 said:

Germany didn't need a fleet of dreadnoughts to project power in Africa. It was done to challenge British naval supremacy.

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You forget that the French navy and army is there along the African coast. So you need a navy to watch their navy and army.
The build up threatens the British dominance.

It wasn't intended primarily to challenge the Royal Navy, but from the British point of view, it was a threat to British naval dominance.

delta1 said:

Germany didn't need a fleet of dreadnoughts to project power in Africa. It was done to challenge British naval supremacy.

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They did need one to deal with the Franco-Russians though who were beatable opponents unlike the RN. A navy that could deal with the French and Russians would threaten the UK's standard for acceptable naval dominance because such demands did not anticipate 3 viable navys in Europe because the German navy had traditionally been a joke. But such tonnage was neccessary to deal with the French and Russians. Such tonnage was really not considered a threat by the British until they built Dreadnought which in theory(bad theory IMO) rest the race to 0. I do not agree with that concept I think it is an exagerration but that is the reason the British felt threatened they'd opened the door for one of the other powers to pass them in capital ship construction and while the Germans did not walk through the door this did not change British anxiety about the possibility about the door being open.

While the German navy was utterly useless against the British(and by extension the French because of the blockade) the German navy was capable of dealing with and did deal with the Russians.

Also the German navy was only irelevant in the colonies because the British were involved. If the British weren't involved that changes. The German navy would have then been useful in protecting their colonies. Not that they would have succeeded but in our timeline war with Britain automatically meant the colonies were forfeit and any German units stationed there needed to run. This was a primary theme of WW1 first few months at sea. German naval units unlucky enough to not be in Germany trying in vain to get back home. None of them did.

The German fleet and its diplomatic importance is probably the most misunderstood event of the era.

First, the Germans had a host of grievances against the British. Beginning with Roseberry and continuing with the last Salisbury administration, Britain repeatedly undercut the Triple Alliance. There are many but a short list: the Congo treaty which would have cut Germany off from the Free State, support for the Armenian rebels, the refusal to support the Triple Intervention and, mot importantly, the lack of support for Italy in Ethiopia. The latter leads to the downfall of Crispi, the end of the Franco-Italian rivalry and the end of the effective end of the Triple Alliance. The Germans, correctly, saw British policy as to create tensions between the Triple Alliance and France/Russia which were followed by Britain selling out the Triple Alliance

Chamberlain's so called "alliance" offers to Germany should be seen in this light. Each were a response to Russia in China (where Britain had interests and Germany didn't). Germany was supposed to risk Russian wrath to support British policy while Britain offered little real support to Germany. Naturally, the Germans wanted nothing to do with this.

Second, the Entente was conceived long before the "German threat" emerged. Negotiations had begun seriously after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was formed as a check on Russia in Asia and before the Russo-Japanese War. Rather than a response to the German fleet, it was an effort to detach France from Russia. The Franco-Russian Alliance was the real threat to British interests in 1903. The idea that the British sought an Entente with the second and third largest navies because she feared the 5th larges one is preposterous. Instead, Britain was settling her disputes with France at the expense of Germany just like she had so many times before. The Kaiser was right: Germany's treaty rights in Morocco were being ignored.

Third, the German fleet expansion corresponds to a period of warm relations with Russia. Between the ascension of Nicholas (1894) and the Bosnian crisis (1908), there were no major issues between Russia and the Triple Alliance. The 1897 Austro-Russian freezing of Balkan issues being the prime example. The relations were so good, that Germany would offer Russia an Alliance proposal. The issues of the day were overseas (mainly China and Africa) and so having a strong navy that would lead both Britain and France/Russia bid for German support made perfect sense.

Germany had her own interests. The Kaiser's job was to protect them not Britain's. Unfortunately, too many textbooks are written by the victors and we get the British view more than the German one.

EmperorPenguin said:

The German fleet and its diplomatic importance is probably the most misunderstood event of the era.

First, the Germans had a host of grievances against the British. Beginning with Roseberry and continuing with the last Salisbury administration, Britain repeatedly undercut the Triple Alliance. There are many but a short list: the Congo treaty which would have cut Germany off from the Free State, support for the Armenian rebels, the refusal to support the Triple Intervention and, mot importantly, the lack of support for Italy in Ethiopia. The latter leads to the downfall of Crispi, the end of the Franco-Italian rivalry and the end of the effective end of the Triple Alliance. The Germans, correctly, saw British policy as to create tensions between the Triple Alliance and France/Russia which were followed by Britain selling out the Triple Alliance

Chamberlain's so called "alliance" offers to Germany should be seen in this light. Each were a response to Russia in China (where Britain had interests and Germany didn't). Germany was supposed to risk Russian wrath to support British policy while Britain offered little real support to Germany. Naturally, the Germans wanted nothing to do with this.

Second, the Entente was conceived long before the "German threat" emerged. Negotiations had begun seriously after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was formed as a check on Russia in Asia and before the Russo-Japanese War. Rather than a response to the German fleet, it was an effort to detach France from Russia. The Franco-Russian Alliance was the real threat to British interests in 1903. The idea that the British sought an Entente with the second and third largest navies because she feared the 5th larges one is preposterous. Instead, Britain was settling her disputes with France at the expense of Germany just like she had so many times before. The Kaiser was right: Germany's treaty rights in Morocco were being ignored.

Third, the German fleet expansion corresponds to a period of warm relations with Russia. Between the ascension of Nicholas (1894) and the Bosnian crisis (1908), there were no major issues between Russia and the Triple Alliance. The 1897 Austro-Russian freezing of Balkan issues being the prime example. The relations were so good, that Germany would offer Russia an Alliance proposal. The issues of the day were overseas (mainly China and Africa) and so having a strong navy that would lead both Britain and France/Russia bid for German support made perfect sense.

Germany had her own interests. The Kaiser's job was to protect them not Britain's. Unfortunately, too many textbooks are written by the victors and we get the British view more than the German one.

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Ah yes too many textbooks are written by the other side, how dare they.

There are a few flaws with the narrative presented and the key ones are dates. The First German Naval Law was enacted in 1898 and the Second in 1900 both were part of the Risk strategy aimed at Britain, the whole the British were reacting before the Germans tried anything in 1903 is a bit backwards, rather consciously so. Not that the narrative of some kind of British duty to a Triple Alliance does not sound odd.

Germany and in particular the Kaiser himself would manipulate the Russian Tsar into war with Japan without any intention of providing actual support, so I suppose his apologists projecting his motives onto Britain makes sense. Which is not to say Britain was a good guy in all of this, it was a bully but it was a bully because it had the muscle to back it up, financial and naval and in the colonial sphere an ability to project power on land too. Thus Tirpitz's idea might have made some sense if Germany had the means to enable.

Certainly there was a sense that other powers would bid for a German alliance. This was a fairly typical over estimation of Germany's own capacities and led to the failure of pretty much all its alliance proposals with either Britain or America or indeed any powers not in its near abroad.

Now as to the size of the German Navy just prior to Dreadnought they had 25 battleships, as many as France, the USN or (if we count 4 coastal defence battleships) Russia. The British had depending on which ones exactly are counted 53-57, some were obviously getting rather old at this point but 2 more pre-Dreadnoughts of the Lord Nelson class were under construction. Now it may be pointed out that a number of the German battleships were rather weak with none having guns of larger than 11' calibre and some having 9.4' guns, the Germans had tried with the Brandenburg class to field battleships with 6 main guns, the then normal pair fore and aft being joined with a shorter pair in an amidships turret. Mind you in German battleships were rather weak then some of the French ones were just plain odd so combat power was perhaps comparable.

The thing was that the British never had nor intended a fleet able to take all comers. They simply intended a fleet able to take on one power while preventing another power jumping on their back. Nor was the size of a given navy a particular issue, the British could and would remain able for some time to outbuild any one navy. It was the intent. That Germany had issues with British policy was understood, so too did the French, Russians, Americans, Italians, Japanese (yes and they were allies) and so on. The idea of someone building a navy to protect from the Royal Navy was, as I have pointed out above, neither new nor controversial.

That however was not what Tirptiz's risk theory was all about. It was very pointedly about designing a force to extort concessions from the British. Hence the focused paranoia. The clear and documented timing also matches with Britain's increased focus on mollifying other potential rivals to concentrate against its one avowed enemy and her allies. The problem was that Germany's naval-industrial complex was not even close to being able to match the supplier of one third of the world's warships and a rather greater proportion of its merchant shipping. In addition the finances of the German Empire were always more precarious than those of the United Kingdom (even without being able to further leverage its Imperial Dominions).

Hence the view then, and that was important, in chancelleries across Europe and the Americas that Germany was on collision course with Britain. An understanding that was leveraged to their own advantage by France and Russia and others.

That the British were selfish thugs is a valid point but there is no getting around that the problem the Germans had was their leaders, however gifted in certain spheres, were idiots in how they handled the wider implications of strategic diplomacy.

RandomRodent said:

Ah yes too many textbooks are written by the other side, how dare they.

There are a few flaws with the narrative presented and the key ones are dates. The First German Naval Law was enacted in 1898 and the Second in 1900 both were part of the Risk strategy aimed at Britain, the whole the British were reacting before the Germans tried anything in 1903 is a bit backwards, rather consciously so. Not that the narrative of some kind of British duty to a Triple Alliance does not sound odd.

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Yes, the law was passed in 1898. The idea had been in the works for years. Anglo-German relations began breaking down under Roseberry and continued under Salisbury for the reasons cited. Who said Britain had a duty to the Triple Alliance? The Kaiser did

RandomRodent said:

Germany and in particular the Kaiser himself would manipulate the Russian Tsar into war with Japan without any intention of providing actual support,

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Of course the Kaiser was happy for the Russo-Japanese War to break out. Why wouldn't he? Japan taking Russia down a notch or just occupying Russia attention for a while would be nice for Germany. Hence, why the Kaiser was infuriated with British backsliding on the Triple Intervention.

The Kaiser was also interested in having a say in Chinese affairs or was he supposed to just let Japan, Russia and Britain do whatever and leave him out?

RandomRodent said:

so I suppose his apologists projecting his motives onto Britain makes sense. Which is not to say Britain was a good guy in all of this, it was a bully but it was a bully because it had the muscle to back it up, financial and naval and in the colonial sphere an ability to project power on land too. Thus Tirpitz's idea might have made some sense if Germany had the means to enable.

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Tirpitz's idea was to have the balance between France/Russia and Britain. It made perfect sense which in the world before the Entente

RandomRodent said:

Certainly there was a sense that other powers would bid for a German alliance. This was a fairly typical over estimation of Germany's own capacities and led to the failure of pretty much all its alliance proposals with either Britain or America or indeed any powers not in its near abroad.

Now as to the size of the German Navy just prior to Dreadnought they had 25 battleships, as many as France, the USN or (if we count 4 coastal defence battleships) Russia. The British had depending on which ones exactly are counted 53-57, some were obviously getting rather old at this point but 2 more pre-Dreadnoughts of the Lord Nelson class were under construction. Now it may be pointed out that a number of the German battleships were rather weak with none having guns of larger than 11' calibre and some having 9.4' guns, the Germans had tried with the Brandenburg class to field battleships with 6 main guns, the then normal pair fore and aft being joined with a shorter pair in an amidships turret. Mind you in German battleships were rather weak then some of the French ones were just plain odd so combat power was perhaps comparable.

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Nah, the Germans had dreams of having a big navy but it was a distant player in 1903. The Second Naval Law had just been passed. Britain's concern was far more to detach France from Russia. Russia alone was outspending the German Navy. While it wasn't concentrated against Britain, ships can move and Russia had access to French bases.

But I guess, Fashoda, Siam, the Niger crisis et all aren't part of the diplomatic game in your book

RandomRodent said:

The thing was that the British never had nor intended a fleet able to take all comers. They simply intended a fleet able to take on one power while preventing another power jumping on their back. Nor was the size of a given navy a particular issue, the British could and would remain able for some time to outbuild any one navy. It was the intent. That Germany had issues with British policy was understood, so too did the French, Russians, Americans, Italians, Japanese (yes and they were allies) and so on. The idea of someone building a navy to protect from the Royal Navy was, as I have pointed out above, neither new nor controversial.

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British policy, enshrined in law, was to out build the next two navies combined. It was possible but straining British resources. It also left open the question: What would happen after Britain fought these two navies? Tirpitz answer was: Germany would wipe you out. Just like Britain wanted Germany to divert Russian attention onto Germany, Germany wanted France/Russia to be at Britain's throat.

RandomRodent said:

That however was not what Tirptiz's risk theory was all about. It was very pointedly about designing a force to extort concessions from the British. Hence the focused paranoia. The clear and documented timing also matches with Britain's increased focus on mollifying other potential rivals to concentrate against its one avowed enemy and her allies. The problem was that Germany's naval-industrial complex was not even close to being able to match the supplier of one third of the world's warships and a rather greater proportion of its merchant shipping. In addition the finances of the German Empire were always more precarious than those of the United Kingdom (even without being able to further leverage its Imperial Dominions).

Hence the view then, and that was important, in chancelleries across Europe and the Americas that Germany was on collision course with Britain. An understanding that was leveraged to their own advantage by France and Russia and others.

That the British were selfish thugs is a valid point but there is no getting around that the problem the Germans had was their leaders, however gifted in certain spheres, were idiots in how they handled the wider implications of strategic diplomacy.

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Again, so what? Germany openly proclaimed that plan. The point was, the British weren't afraid of it. What they were afraid of was the Franco/Russian alliance which threatened their hegemony over the seas not to mention that Russia could threaten India directly. It was Russian penetration into the Far East that was the focus of British attention in 1900-04 not the German fleet.

The German were by no means idiots. They played their cards as well as anyone until 1914 when a lot of people grabbed the ..... ball.

The British were by no means on a collision course with Germany. Its the last thing they actually wanted. Tensions on the continent were good for Britain but they never wanted them to boil over. Britain and Germany cooperated even in the latter period over such issues as the Portuguese colonies and Venezuela


In any event, the point, which you completely missed, was that the German fleet wasn't the cause of the Anglo-German breakdown, it was the symptom of it. The breakdown began in the early 1890's under Roseberry and continued under Salisbury. Germany correctly saw British overtures as mere attempts to improve British bargaining position against France/Russia something that even Chamberlain admitted

EmperorPenguin said:

Germany had her own interests. The Kaiser's job was to protect them not Britain's.

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When you live close to a superpower, part of your job is to make sure that they don't think that you're threatening the centerpiece of their power.

EmperorPenguin said:

British policy, enshrined in law, was to out build the next two navies combined. It was possible but straining British resources.

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Except as has been discussed above it was not.

By 1914 the British had 38 Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers, Germany had 24 Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers, the United States had 10 Dreadnought Battleships. Both the USN and KM were weak in cruisers and light units proportional to their battleships strength. Long story short normal British building patterns saw the British comfortably in a 2 powers +10% standing.

SSDD said:

Can anyone answer, if German navy construction was not aimed at threatening/challenging Britain then why did Kaiser repeatedly reject Britain's concerns for German naval build up?

To protect colonies, Germany didn't need dreadnaught or pre-dreadnaught battleships or armoured cruisers. Just a fleet of light cruisers, sloops, gunboats would do it.

Only immediate naval threat to Germany was Russia as it shared coast line, not even France. Bismarck was aware of it so he stated something like land mice Germany had no quarrel with sea mice Britain.

Since neither France or Russia (Russia didn't even have colonies) could cut off German colonies without being threatened in mainland (why should it matter if French navy sailing from Indo-China bombards German Samoa when German army is threatening Paris) and Britain was not interested in war with Germany, German naval build-up was simply unnecessary.

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He didn't except the 2 power standard which was built around a reality where Germany didn't have a navy and was unreasonable. Wilhelm kept true to his later negotiated promises of not exceeding or reaching 50% of the British fleet(which given the scale of the British fleet was a massive margin). They simply did not believe him and Wilhelm was not good at people skills.

The British dreadnought played into this paranoia. Before that the British were more secure in their established lead but if you go by the idea Dreadnought made all capital ships obsolete(not true at least as literally as that argument takes the concept) the ratio had been reset at 0.0 and the British had to regain their lead via new construction meaning while they were doing that the Germans had over 50% without actually doing anything. Most tellings of the Anglo-German arms race isolate the number of dreadnoughts to suggest there was a race. But the British were outproducing the Germans every single year between 1906 and 1914 the only thing the Germans could have done to assuade British concerns in this period is delay building dreadnoughts altogether like the French and Russians did for a few years. To the British it felt like a race. But a race requires 2 participants. The British would regain their previous lead during WW1 but they couldn't automatically establish said lead in a world where only a new type of warship counted because it started at 0.0 and the Germans weren't staying exactly still.

This is where the fiction of a race comes from. If we look at the wikipedia page for Anglo-German arms race for example it's counting just dreadnoughts/battlecruisers and this is consistant with most synopsis of the race. Not the capability of said dreadnoughts, not semi dreadnoughts, armored cruisers or previously existing tonnage, not the rate of said dreadnoughts being constructed just the total number. All of these metrics overwhelmingly favored the British. But given the race started at 0-0 the total number of dreadnoughts would always be close in the late 1900s and early 1910s. And the Germans could have done nothing to avert that except shut down their program entirely which you could argue would have been wise given the French and Russians weren't building dreadnoughts(though their semi dreadnoughts were arguably comparable to say the Nassaus).


Also the main original pretext of British naval buildup was to defend against the Franco-Russian alliance in the 1890s. If said alliance was a valid threat for the British it was a valid threat to Germany. This was why Germany was pursuing an alliance/partnership/whatever the British were willing to call it with the British. But once Dreadnought was built Germany became seen as the bigger threat because they had the shipbuiding capacity(supported by Germanys competitive merchant shipping) to take advantage of this theorized 0.0 and were building dreadnoughts opposed to the French and Russians who were opting to build one last class of semi dreadnoughts.

There's also the merchant aspect to all this Germany had risen as the 2nd maritime country in peacetime endeavors as well. The idea the military sector would have a navy below that of Austria-Hungary(which would have almost certainly been the case had Frederick remained Kaiser) really didn't match the prestige of Germanys merchant marine.

RandomRodent said:

Ah yes too many textbooks are written by the other side, how dare they.

There are a few flaws with the narrative presented and the key ones are dates. The First German Naval Law was enacted in 1898 and the Second in 1900 both were part of the Risk strategy aimed at Britain, the whole the British were reacting before the Germans tried anything in 1903 is a bit backwards, rather consciously so. Not that the narrative of some kind of British duty to a Triple Alliance does not sound odd.

Germany and in particular the Kaiser himself would manipulate the Russian Tsar into war with Japan without any intention of providing actual support, so I suppose his apologists projecting his motives onto Britain makes sense. Which is not to say Britain was a good guy in all of this, it was a bully but it was a bully because it had the muscle to back it up, financial and naval and in the colonial sphere an ability to project power on land too. Thus Tirpitz's idea might have made some sense if Germany had the means to enable.

Certainly there was a sense that other powers would bid for a German alliance. This was a fairly typical over estimation of Germany's own capacities and led to the failure of pretty much all its alliance proposals with either Britain or America or indeed any powers not in its near abroad.

Now as to the size of the German Navy just prior to Dreadnought they had 25 battleships, as many as France, the USN or (if we count 4 coastal defence battleships) Russia. The British had depending on which ones exactly are counted 53-57, some were obviously getting rather old at this point but 2 more pre-Dreadnoughts of the Lord Nelson class were under construction. Now it may be pointed out that a number of the German battleships were rather weak with none having guns of larger than 11' calibre and some having 9.4' guns, the Germans had tried with the Brandenburg class to field battleships with 6 main guns, the then normal pair fore and aft being joined with a shorter pair in an amidships turret. Mind you in German battleships were rather weak then some of the French ones were just plain odd so combat power was perhaps comparable.

The thing was that the British never had nor intended a fleet able to take all comers. They simply intended a fleet able to take on one power while preventing another power jumping on their back. Nor was the size of a given navy a particular issue, the British could and would remain able for some time to outbuild any one navy. It was the intent. That Germany had issues with British policy was understood, so too did the French, Russians, Americans, Italians, Japanese (yes and they were allies) and so on. The idea of someone building a navy to protect from the Royal Navy was, as I have pointed out above, neither new nor controversial.

That however was not what Tirptiz's risk theory was all about. It was very pointedly about designing a force to extort concessions from the British. Hence the focused paranoia. The clear and documented timing also matches with Britain's increased focus on mollifying other potential rivals to concentrate against its one avowed enemy and her allies. The problem was that Germany's naval-industrial complex was not even close to being able to match the supplier of one third of the world's warships and a rather greater proportion of its merchant shipping. In addition the finances of the German Empire were always more precarious than those of the United Kingdom (even without being able to further leverage its Imperial Dominions).

Hence the view then, and that was important, in chancelleries across Europe and the Americas that Germany was on collision course with Britain. An understanding that was leveraged to their own advantage by France and Russia and others.

That the British were selfish thugs is a valid point but there is no getting around that the problem the Germans had was their leaders, however gifted in certain spheres, were idiots in how they handled the wider implications of strategic diplomacy.

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I think the British fleet at the start of WW1 could have conceivably bested the rest of the world combined. If the British didn't have a fleet intended to take all comers such a fleet has never existed.

SSDD said:

Can anyone answer, if German navy construction was not aimed at threatening/challenging Britain then why did Kaiser repeatedly reject Britain's concerns for German naval build up?

To protect colonies, Germany didn't need dreadnaught or pre-dreadnaught battleships or armoured cruisers. Just a fleet of light cruisers, sloops, gunboats would do it.

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Emperor of Wurttemburg 43 said:

He didn't except the 2 power standard which was built around a reality where Germany didn't have a navy and was unreasonable. Wilhelm kept true to his later negotiated promises of not exceeding or reaching 50% of the British fleet(which given the scale of the British fleet was a massive margin). They simply did not believe him and Wilhelm was not good at people skills.

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I am going to take a slightly different line.

The problem is that Wilhelm did try and address British concerns. Only he chose to do so personally, with an interview with the Daily Telegraph. It might be safe to say that it...did not go well. Worse if, as some historians have argued, it caused Wilhelm to withdraw from his previously more active role in government he left Germany in the hands of folks who managed to be if anything less adroit. Which is saying something.

Now to understand the dynamics of the two power standard the Admiralty basically was used to a blank cheque from Parliament, the standard ensured that would continue. Now professional planning in the period (and to be honest in modern times) usually worked by identifying a not unreasonable enemy and building and basing to able to beat them. For most folks this enemy was either your local rival or the Royal Navy. For the Royal Navy it varied as no one power was typically close enough to make for a real threat since France dropped out of a serious race in the 1860s. What made the German dynamic was the doctrinal decision to make it an offensive force aimed at the British rather than the more usual deterrent designed to bleed the RN of blood and ships should they try and interfere in another nation's policy aspirations.

This hugely altered the way the Royal Navy did things, it went from a global police force with most of its ships abroad to an intense focus upon defence of home waters. Yet at the Admiralty it is hard to say how seriously they took Germany, it is not like the signal "Friends today, Friends forever!" indicated a service that thought war inevitable.

Now as to Dreadnought I tend to a different interpretation. When preparatory work for her construction commenced the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron was still a thing. By the time her keel was laid down it was not. Still this left several navies with nominally at least half as many battleships as the British. Further but based on British formulas the number of First Class cruisers was inadequate according to Royal Navy formulas and this still included unsatisfactory ships like the Orlando Class. With the arrival of Dreadnought and the first of the intended new generation of first class cruiser Invincible the Royal Navy found itself leaping ahead.

Now I am going to admit I too grew up on the common narrative of the idea of a reset to zero being bad for the RN but was it? It took a while for anyone to respond and while the pre-dreadnought race had been a little tight with the margin there in battleships but a little shaky in cruisers in the period up to the outbreak of the 1st World War there were only two other powers in the race. As I have mentioned above these were Germany and the USA. Not like in the period when French and Russians had balanced navies and both Germany and the United States had meaningful battlefleets. The issue of cruisers was sort of being addressed by the fact that while the number of battlecruisers was shaping up to be even more below Imperial commerce defence and heavy fleet scouting than the supply of armoured cruisers the powers that had battlecruisers were not actually the ones that also had the best armoured cruiser fleets....also Japan was a firm British ally and Russia was both yet to get in on the battlecruiser act and also, at least technically, an ally. Well sort of, entente partner anyway.

Britain was able to comfortably keep up with its two power goal while only actually having to expect to compete with one of them.

But for the latter part of your question @SSDD I would say no one would have blinked if Germany had built battleships. It would make sense for them to have some. The areas Germany would expect to cover would be the Baltic to blockade Russia and the northern entrance to the North Sea to prevent blockade by France. Cruisers for Imperial defence work and to keep the French from getting comfy and of course a good chunk more vessels of the rate that Germans called torpedo boats and the British destroyers for fleet screening. However numbers were not so much the issue as a more clearly stated doctrinal shift to regarding France and Russia as the enemy.

Emperor of Wurttemburg 43 said:

I think the British fleet at the start of WW1 could have conceivably bested the rest of the world combined. If the British didn't have a fleet intended to take all comers such a fleet has never existed.

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In some ways that is true except for massive cruiser gap vis-a-vis the rest of the world that would have made commerce protection very interesting. Still for reasons I have pointed out above and also the invention of light armoured cruiser or more commonly called light cruiser I have not particularly explored it had gotten easier.